Flowering Habit and Vegetative Behaviour in Tea (Camellia sinensis L) Seed Trees in North-East India

Apical growth of a tea shoot occurs by a succession of flushesseparated by short periods of rest. This paper describes theexternal morphology of flowering, fruiting, and abscission ofleaves of the tea plant in north-east India in relation to thephasic activity of shoot apices. All shoots on a tree make leafy growth when a new cycle of growthbegins in the spring, but terminal buds apparently become dormantas the season advances. Apparently dormant terminal buds shedbud scales, leaving on the stem a considerable number of scars,representing leafless cataphyllary flushes. These cataphyllaryflushes are produced at the same time as the leafy flushes onother shoots. A flower is formed only in the axil of a bud scale. Flowerswhich appear to develop in leaf axils are in fact inserted inthe axils of bud scales of the axillary buds. A distal leafy flush is without flowers. Flowers appear in itsleaf axils only when the terminal bud starts growth for thenext higher flush. A distal floriferous cataphyllary flush appearsas a terminal cluster of flowers. Thus, there is an acropetalsuccession of flowers, flush by flush on a caulome, determinedby the phasic activity of the apical bud. The main crop of flowers exposes anthers from the end of thethird flush (late September to early October) until the endof the winter period of growth (late January to early February).In some plants a second, minor crop of flowers appears in thespring between the end of the first and beginning of the secondflushes. In spite of considerable time lag between anthesis,the fruits produced by these two crops of flowers mature anddehisce at the same time during October to November. Abscission of leaves is also dependent upon the phasic activityof the apical buds. Only the top two flushes of a shoot possessleaves. Resumption of apical growth for a third flush, leafyor cataphyllary, causes the abscission of leaves on the lowermostof the three flushes. Two cataphyllary flushes therefore resultin the loss of all leaves on a shoot.